The Color of Darkness

by Ruth Hatfield

  “You okay?” asked Danny.

  “Yeah, ’course.” She scowled.

  “Okay, we’re here. What do we do?”

  What did they do? She hadn’t thought for a moment that she’d be so scared. She hadn’t thought that she wouldn’t want to go in. She swallowed. Sometimes it wasn’t enough just to do things no one else would do, she told herself. Sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to do, either.

  Who had told her that? For a second she had a vision of someone with long black hair, like her own, someone who smelled of warmth. But it was gone before she could reach out to it.

  She controlled her voice. “We go in and then Barshin calls Zadoc.”

  “What, now?”

  They both looked at the blackening waves. Drifting behind a thin cloud, the moon softened and began to stroke the water with a paler, steely light. Of course it was now.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay then. Let’s go.”

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure that she could. Those waves were so dark—and it was Danny who knew what the dog looked like. He was the one who should go into Chromos and find it.

  “I dunno,” she said, holding her arms tightly to her chest. “I dunno if I should.”

  Danny laughed. “Neither do I,” he said. “I mean, it’s a massively stupid idea, isn’t it?”

  Cath glared at him. He stopped laughing.

  “You still scared?” Her voice came out in a thin whisper.

  Danny shrugged. “I guess so. I … don’t really know. You?”

  Cath shook her head. “’Course not,” she said, lifting her chin high. “S’only the sea, ain’t it?”

  Danny looked at her. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, and then he stared back toward the sea. The moonlight had stolen all color from his face: his cheeks were snow white.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Let’s do it. Come on.”

  He held out a hand to her. How could she say no? The sea was boiling, as black as tar. A streak of moonlight broke through the waves, as vivid as the stripe on a badger’s head.

  Palms thick with clammy sweat, she looked down at her feet. And then there was Barshin, his thin face steady.

  “It’ll be fine,” the hare said. “We’ll all go in together, and then I’ll call Zadoc. I really don’t think he’ll be able to carry both of you. But if he can’t, Cath can swim back to shore once we’ve gone to Chromos. We won’t go far out. She’ll be fine to get back on her own.”

  Cath looked out at the sea. She couldn’t even swim very well. She’d only had a few lessons at school.

  Isbjin al-Orr stepped along the shingle beside her. He had his head up, his antlers cast back, and he was sniffing the air. He turned to look at her.

  What was he trying to say? He must know that she couldn’t understand.

  “What’s he saying?” she asked Danny.

  Danny shrugged. “Nothing. But he’ll help us.”

  And then she understood. He was offering to take them in. Isbjin al-Orr wasn’t brave. He was without fear. And he knew it.

  She closed her eyes and breathed in once, then opened them. “Give me a leg up,” she said to Danny.

  Danny held his cupped hands out, and she stepped into them and sat on the stag’s back. His antlers were soft in the sharp air.

  She put down her hand for Barshin, who came to sit in front of her, and then again for Danny, who jumped up behind her. And Isbjin al-Orr began to run toward the sea.

  * * *

  The stag’s hooves hit the water and threw up a cloud of spray. In a second Cath’s clothes were soaked and her hair was streaked over her cheeks, sticking to her skin. The water was quickly up to the height of Isbjin al-Orr’s chest, and then too deep for him to run through, and he began to swim, striking out at the sea with smooth fury.

  A huge wave came without warning, swelling and rearing up in front of them. It held back for a moment, then curled over their heads and hurled itself down, streaming over their faces.

  Cath choked, struggling for air. She heard one dreadful, dry snort as Isbjin al-Orr blew hard through his salty nostrils. Barshin struggled up her shoulders and curled himself around her neck, his long legs hard against her throat, front paws clinging to her face. Danny threw his arms around her waist, nearly dragging her off backward. She grabbed for the stag’s neck—whatever happened, she mustn’t let go, mustn’t lose him—but his coat was slippery and her hands found nothing to hold.

  A pain stabbed her cheek and another wave tried to pull her into its inky belly. She reached out, trying to fend off the pain and the water, and then she could no longer feel the soaked hair of Isbjin al-Orr’s short coat or the warmth of his body. She kept her head up, desperate to breathe, to stay above the surface, but Barshin was heavy around her head and Danny’s arms were tight about her, anchoring her down, and neither would let her go so she could breathe, both pushed her farther down into the water …

  Another black wave broke over her head. She saw that Isbjin al-Orr hadn’t disappeared, but that his head was right next to her and his crown of antlers was high above the water. His antlers shone silver as the moonlight caught them.

  Isbjin al-Orr was swimming purposefully out to sea. He shouldn’t go too far—what if Zadoc couldn’t carry her as well as Danny and she had to swim back alone?

  No. Cath kept her chin above the surface of the sea and set her jaw hard. If anyone else was going to Chromos, she was going with them. Even if she had to hang off Zadoc’s tail.

  “He’s coming!” shrieked Barshin, squirming around Cath’s face and pushing a foot into her ear to steady himself.

  Zadoc breached from the waves like a seal, hair slicked down to his skin. He was entirely black in the moonlight apart from his glittering eyes, shining with all the colors of Chromos.

  “Quick! Get Danny to him!” Barshin’s legs scrambled against Cath’s cheek, raking her skin with hard claws. If they had drawn blood, she couldn’t tell beneath all the flying spray.

  “Danny!” Cath yelled. “Go on! Get on!”

  But Danny was already swimming toward Zadoc, his face turned from the battering waves. He reached out a hand to the horse and touched it.

  Nothing happened. No flames, no Kalia. Nothing but a boy’s hand pressing against a horse, its muscles strong and warm.

  His fingers found safety in the horse’s mane, and he swung his leg easily over Zadoc’s back. Poised above the foaming sea, he tilted his head and looked up into the black sky. His body seemed to grow, and his wet shoulders shone in the moonlight, as if he had shrugged on a suit of silver armor.

  “Take me to him!” Barshin screamed. The hare was shaking violently, with fear or cold, Cath couldn’t tell which. He seemed to have gone a little crazy. She swam the few strokes to Zadoc, and Barshin leapt to the safety of his back.

  Zadoc plunged, and Cath saw that he was about to dive down into the sea. She grabbed at his mane but missed as he swiftly began to disappear. His tail was still behind him though; she swiped out and found it, a few strands of coarse hair. She snapped her fists shut and clung on for dear life.

  Almost at once she felt the water grow thin, and then a pair of teeth snapped shut on the back of her sweater and she was swinging up onto Zadoc’s back, landing behind Danny. Barshin leapt gratefully into her arms, and together they disappeared into the inky depths.

  CHAPTER 20

  REVENGE

  “Are you sure it’ll work?” Tom whispered, crouched under the dark trees. “I don’t think I’m very good at the stoat noises yet.”

  “It’ll have to, won’t it?” Sammael raised his hand. He was kneeling behind the tree root in exactly the place Johnny White had lain. Sammael wasn’t shaking with fear, though. He was listening to the night sounds of the small woodland: rustles, low squeaks, the clacking of owls’ beaks around beetles’ skins, the distant barks of farmyard dogs chained to kennels.

  The light buzzing of a motor was winding its way toward the far side
of the hill. That was where the baiters had parked before.

  “Is that them?” Tom strained his ears toward the sound.

  Sammael nodded. “Ready?”

  Tom was ready. Confidence surged through him. Before, with trembling Johnny White beside him and burning outrage tearing at his guts, he’d been afraid, desperate. Now he was going to get them by calling up an army of stoats.

  For days he’d lain low in ditches waiting for their calls, and he’d tried to imitate their chirping and barking sounds, straining to distinguish friendly calls from warning ones. He wished he could be more like Sammael, who sat with Iaco on his arm, stroking her back with a finger and making a low noise in his throat to her while she stared into his thin face. Whether this was really talking, Tom wasn’t sure. But the stoat had often disappeared for a time into grasses and banks of scrub, chattering away, and then returned to Sammael’s arm. Sometimes other stoat faces had peeped out of the grasses and viewed Tom with their hard black eyes, then withdrawn once they had satisfied their curiosity.

  It made Tom smile, to be stared at by stoats. He’d spent hours himself watching for them on the farm. What a business. But if it worked—well, he’d always said nature was amazing.

  “Get down!” Sammael gave a silent gesture downward and retreated behind the tree.

  Tom watched. The trees were mottled olive green in a sea of shadows; the earth was as dark as tar.

  And then he heard their footsteps.

  They were quicker than before, but it was the same men. The coward with the terrier, the short man with the double chin, and the taller one with eyes as cold as moonlight. They knew the way, and the terrier was pulling them forward, eager to get at her business. Tom’s fingers tightened on the earth as the coward bent down to unclip the terrier.

  “She’ll do the job,” the coward said. “Off you go, Julie.”

  They hung a bright light on the bough of a birch tree and turned the beam toward the badger sett.

  The entrance, carelessly earthed up days before, had been reopened by the badger, so Julie the terrier only paused briefly to scratch at the dirt, sniff it, and give a little whine before snapping her jaws and scrambling down into the hole.

  To distract himself from the horrible thought of what was going on underground, Tom tried to commit the men’s faces to memory as they leaned back against the trees and waited for the terrier to flush the badger out. The coward had a twisted smile of eagerness on his lips; the short, paunchy one was fatly satisfied; and the taller man with his big belly and blank eyes had a face so emotionless it made Tom shiver.

  A flurry of yelping barks shot up from the hole, and a yowling so loud it seemed to shake the earth. The terrier’s tail and wriggling haunches appeared, then the rest of its yapping body, shaking with aggression.

  This time, it hadn’t managed to bite a badger underground. The old boar erupted into the night, its jaws half-open in a vicious snarl. Lamplight caught its white fangs and raking claws as it charged toward the barking terrier and threw itself into the attack.

  The men unclipped the other dogs and let them go.

  For a second, Tom froze. His neck broke out into an icy sweat.

  Stay still, he told himself. Just a few more seconds. Make sure everyone is distracted, then—

  Then what? Call some stoats?

  It would never work. What use were stoats against dogs like these? It was a stupid plan, bound to fail. The badger would die—

  No. He would never let that happen. This time, if the stoats failed, he would throw himself forward. The men would get far worse punishments if they let their dogs attack a human.

  As though men’s lives were worth more than animals’, thought Tom. As though these cruel men were worth more than that desperate badger.

  He held his breath.

  The dogs plunged toward the badger.

  The big old boar wrinkled up his graying face, opened his mouth wide in a full, angry roar and showed them the size of his teeth. And it was the badger who flung himself first into the fight, growling like a bear.

  But wherever the badger fought, claws and teeth and snapping jaws, there was another dog he couldn’t reach biting at his belly or his back.

  “Go on!” whispered Sammael from somewhere behind Tom. “Call them! He’ll fight, but he can’t win.”

  Tom tried to bring up the barking noise of the stoats in his dry throat. He could barely hear the sound over the snarling and growling of the fighting animals, but he felt his throat move. Was that it? Was that even the right sound?

  And then, catching the lamplight, to the left of him he saw the small glint of a pair of black eyes on the other side of the tree trunk. Farther to the left, another pair. Farther on, another and another and another, until everywhere he looked, the night was glowing with bright black eyes.

  He made the hissing bark in his throat again. It was right—it had to be right. He hoped desperately that he wasn’t telling them to go away.

  But the eyes came running toward him.

  * * *

  Behind Tom, Sammael reached into his pocket and pulled out a few grains of gray sand. Putting them to his lips, he blew them forward onto the night breeze, which carried them toward the badger fight.

  The lamplight died. Above the growling and barking, the hissing of stoats rose in a crescendo to the sound of a fighter plane stuttering with gunfire. The stoats’ eyes, dimmer now, caught only traces of light reflected from the moon and stars.

  A swarm of inky shapes, knitted together in a rattling blanket of fury, rushed over the lunging dogs, clinging to their legs, their necks, their ears, hanging off their heavy jaws and biting into their skins. The dogs leapt in the darkness, trying to bark, trying to howl, thwarted at every twist by a dozen sets of claws and tiny teeth.

  The badger backed away, stiff-legged, confused. It sat back on its haunches and reared up a little, pawing at the empty air.

  Tom watched the creatures in the darkness of the night, fighting to protect one another. He wanted to see them as they really were: nature fighting for the right to live in peace against the evils of men.

  And then the badger began to grow.

  It happened so quickly that before Tom could even understand what was going on, the badger was as tall as a man, high above the stoats and the increasingly frightened dogs. Its paws were the size of dinner plates, each claw as big as a curling coat hook. It swiped at the air, crouched, and sprang toward the three men.

  The men screamed and ran. The two smaller goons shot away fast, but Cold Eyes was caught by the badger’s swinging claws and dashed into a tree. He crumpled to the ground, fists up to defend himself, but even through the darkness Tom could see how tiny he was, cowering in the shadow of the massive badger. The badger stood back on its haunches again, its huge gray body as big as a car.

  “It’s going to—”

  Kill the man? Of course it was. He’d been trying to kill it, hadn’t he? But something hard inside Tom broke and his anger flooded away. It wasn’t right to kill anything without a good reason—not badgers, not men.

  The air lightened and a pale glow spread downward from the treetops. The dogs had stopped snapping and were curling up into tiny balls, whining to themselves. The badger stood, a growl in its throat, and Cold Eyes held his hands up to cover his face.

  From above the treetops a spark of wind and starlight dropped into the rough arena, followed by the sound of beating wings and a high, clear call.

  Two tawny birds flew down, their wings spreading wide. They swooped through the trees, feathers glinting with the gold of the burnished sun, and curled their claws around the shoulders of Cold Eyes’s coat, lifting him off the ground. He was in the air and out of the clearing before Tom could blink, or name the birds, or even think to follow them into the sky.

  The dogs uncurled and shot away into the darkness. The hard-eyed stoats vanished back into the wood. The huge badger—but it was huge no more, just a normal size, snuffling at the ground and trun
dling back toward its sett.

  Iaco was the only stoat to stay behind. She came trotting toward them. To his right, Tom saw Sammael’s hand stretch forward and the little stoat leap nimbly onto it.

  He sat up, feeling for the rough lumps of tree root. They were solid and anchored to the earth. Some things were still real, then.

  “What … was that?” he said.

  “Looks like we got some help,” said Sammael, sitting up himself, then rising to his feet.

  “No, I mean, what was that? The badger—getting so massive—and the light, and those birds … Where did they take that man? Is he dead?”

  “Oh no, I don’t think so. Not that it matters either way. They were golden eagles—I had no idea they ever came this far south. I should think they’ll just drop him somewhere, but I doubt he’ll ever speak sense again, wherever he lands up. At least we got the baiters, didn’t we?” He held out a hand to help Tom up. “That’s what matters, isn’t it?”

  “But … I…” Tom tried to play over in his mind what he’d just seen. Had he really seen it? Or just imagined it?

  “Shall we walk across the hill and over to town? I know it’s a bit of a way, but we might see some good night wildlife. And then you can report the men to the police as soon as the station opens.”

  Tom stared up at Sammael, and the shape of the man and the offered hand. How could he be so casual? He must have seen nothing out of the ordinary. Apart from the eagles and the stoats, of course.

  Rising to his feet, Tom didn’t quite know what to say. Perhaps he shouldn’t mention the monster badger again. He must have made that up, out of shadows and fear.

  “Do eagles fly at night, then?” he tried, still not seeing anything clearly in his mind’s eye.

  “Those did. Did you hear what they were saying?”

  “No,” said Tom. “I haven’t learned their calls yet—they’re the only ones I haven’t done. I didn’t know where to go to find them.”

  “Ah, I know the very place! We must go there. And then you’ll know all the calls, will you?”

  “All the birds,” said Tom. “I’ve still got a couple of pages of the animals to go. But the eagles were the last birds. What were they saying?”